Blackout
by Cheerfulbunny
Summary: After a series of violent events, Derek is forced into a unique coma - one never seen before. His survival depends on how far his friends are willing to go for him - and his own strength. His fate rests in the hands of the person he loves. So what happens when that person can not find the strength to go on? And what happens when Derek chooses to let go of the thing he values most?
1. The Short Prologue

~~~Author's Notes~~~

I swear to god, I keep making too many ideas and I never have enough time to write it all down.

Ugh.

So here's my newest story, another multi-chapter story. Yay me. Short Prologue. Next one is 1900 words, though.

* * *

Derek walked away from his ex-girlfriend's house.

He couldn't believe it.

Five times he had trusted, and five times he had been fooled. Five fucking times.

And he had thought that, maybe, just maybe, this would be that last time.

But luck had a way with Derek Stiles, and unfortunately for him, he had pulled the short end of the stick.

He couldn't just let her go, could he?

Derek thought quietly to himself as he walked to his car and got in. Looking back, he could've sworn something was watching him.

Shaking his head and clearing his tired mind, Derek started the car and drove away.

As the road blurred past him, Derek, who had had a bad day at work, realized he was tired.

So fucking tired.

His eyes slipped off the road for a second, off the lights for a mere second, but a second was enough.

An incoming SUV ran into Derek's car at over 70 mph, catapulting Derek through his window.

From there, everything happened so quickly he didn't have time to form a coherent thought.

His right leg hit a tree, causing multiple fractures and lacerations, and fantastically twisted his body and changed his course of impact.

Blinding pain twisted through his body. Derek let out a soundless scream.

The twist itself shattered four of Derek's ribs, and three other miscellaneous bones, including his pelvis. Shattered bone caused lacerations to form over his left lung, and the force caused some of his serous membranes to rupture, causing a hemothorax.

Derek's body went limp.

Pinwheeling through the air, he landed right next to the road. The impact crushed three more of his ribs, fractured his collarbone, and ruptured his appendix.

Receiving scrapes, cuts, and an assorted number of other wounds, Derek finally slid to a stop, unconscious and without a heartbeat.

~~~Author's Notes~~~

I KNOW IT'S SHORT. It's a prologue, though. Can't blame me too much. The next chapter is angsty. Have fun.


	2. Trial

~~~Author Notes~~~

Blackout, Chapter 2. Hopefully this will get me a review?

This is quite a detailed chapter. Excuse the repetitiveness a couple hundred words down, but it's necessary to prove my point. Angsty.

* * *

A girl was walking to her car, late to work.

She had emerald eyes, long blonde hair, and a slightly innocent look. Her pace spoke of professionalism, but there was something not right about her. The man watching her pondered her change. She looked different in some minute way, some way he couldn't quite put his finger on.

It took him a while, but he figured it out. She smelled different, with a smell tainting her honey-vanilla scent, and some of her hair was out of place. He frowned. Her hair always fell perfectly into place. So why…?

He got it as she unlocked her doors.

She stepped into her car, which happened to be a light pink Prius. Old-fashioned, yes, but it still had the best miles-per-gallon rate. And it was rather comfortable and cheap, considering the $150,000 dollar average price for most cars these days.

The car drove away, leaving him behind. The man remained there, thinking about her. He knew everything about her now.

For instance, he knew that stupid doctor she worked with. He knew that they had some sort of personal relationship. And he knew that the man couldn't be around anymore.

Which is why he had got rid of him.

He smiled. Murder made him happy.

But not as happy as he could be.

Taking Angela Thompson would be so much better.

* * *

Angie walked over to Caduceus, shaking off the someone-is-watching-me shivers that she had felt walking to her car.

Seeing the large white building always made her happy and sad at the same time.

Happy, because she could help save lives. She loved to see the smiles on people's faces. She felt content and whole at the hospital.

Sad, because she sometimes had to break bad news to families. Sad, because she couldn't always save everyone.

And heartbroken, because she was forced to see the one person she dreaded seeing. The one person she had broken beyond repair. The one person who took depression drugs on a regular basis. She was so wrong to treat him the way she did.

Derek had saved her father - twice. He had operated on her mother, and saved the world not once, not twice, but thrice. He had been the one to save nearly every single person she knew and loved.

Derek genuinely loved and cared for her. He had operated on a patient while she stood motionless, not three hours after she had told him, "You...you aren't a real doctor!" He had held her together in her moments of need. He had saved her life when they had been captured by Delphi. He had been the one to operate on her when she had suffered from every type of GUILT imaginable, then watched as she almost died right in front of his eyes.

It was a pity that Angie couldn't love him the way he loved her. If she did, her life would be so perfectly wonderful.

But she couldn't. Every time she committed herself to him, someone else would catch her eye. Phone numbers would be exchanged, and small talk would turn into a date. And as much as she always tried to hide it, he would always find out, and then he would disappear for a while. Then eventually, her relationships would break down, and he would always find her alone and by herself. He would make her feel better, she would kiss him, and he would always respond happily.

And the thing was, he did it over and over again. Four times he had come to make her feel better. Five times she had broken him.

Derek had never showed any resentment or anger towards her. He would always make her feel better just by being around him. He radiated happiness.

Except that one moment, where he had found out she had been cheating on him again. She had found him in his house, staring at a wall, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. His face had been expressionless. She watched him as he sat there, frozen in time.

The next day she had found two scars on the inside of his wrists. She had stared in shock as he held out his hand for a scalpel, accidentally revealing the injury he had inflicted onto himself.

"_Scalpel."_

_The sleeves of Derek's scrubs slid back slightly, exposing the flesh of his wrist. And on his wrists were two red slashes, ragged and clearly self-inflicted._

_She had gasped, causing everyone in the O.R to stare at her._

"_Angie?"_

"_S-Sorry!" She had stammered, flushing red and handing him the instrument he requested._

_She caught him giving her a quizzical look, but said nothing at the time._

_After the operation, she cornered him._

"_What was that, Derek?"_

_He was confused. "Huh?"_

"_Oh, it's just the scars on your wrists. Nothing big, right?"_

_He glared at her. "It's none of your business!" He said defensively._

_Angie tried for a more concerned tone. "If something's causing you problems, I can help." She offered._

_Derek snorted. "Maybe when YOU aren't the cause of my problem." He said resentfully._

_This got to her. She stiffened slightly, making him smirk. He turned around and started to walk out._

"_Then maybe you should just stay out of my life!" She practically screamed at him, tears welling up in her eyes._

"_Maybe I will!" He yelled back, not bothering to turn around. Angie could hear the hidden threat in his voice._

"_FINE!" She screamed at him. A tear slid out of her eye._

_He exited the room._

_She dropped to her knees and sobbed._

_Leslie found her curled up under the table an hour later, sleeping, with tear streaks on her face._

That had been just the day before, she reflected grimly.

She sighed softly, closing her eyes for a moment. What had her life come to?

Unfortunately, it was out of her hands. Everything was spiraling out of her control…

Walking in to the building, she noticed immediately that Tyler and Leslie weren't here, as was Derek. Where were the three at? They were normally here to greet her, especially when they had the same shifts, which they had right now.

Pushing the notion that something was wrong out of her mind, she strode over to the elevator and hit the button marked "2". She had a huge load of paperwork to do, and she wasn't going to let any little superstition bother her.

Until her coffee cup cracked, sending a stream of the hot stuff onto her heels, and onto her bare skin as the elevator door opened.

She winced slightly at the sharp sound, and hissed as she felt the burning liquid splash on her.

Acting instinctively, she kicked her foot as hard as she could, sending the cup and the majority of the liquid spiraling into the air.

Unfortunately, her cup hadn't been a Styrofoam cup, and her mug shattered into hundreds of pieces.

She swore under her breath as a janitor came running around the corner.

"Excuse me ma'am, I got this."

"Thanks." Angie replied, slightly miffed at how the day was going.

She walked to the office she shared with Derek, and placed her hand on the doorknob. Locked.

The metal sent a static shock running through her hand, and she cursed under her breath.

Jerking her hand away instinctively, she slapped her hand against the metal trolley someone was wheeling past her. Nothing fell, luckily for her, but the trolley shocked her also.

Sidney sighed as a _"Son of a bitch!" _rang through the hospital.

* * *

_Derek was floating in a black world. He couldn't think straight, his mind being covered by a thin haze that blocked the most complex of his thinking._

"_So this is what it's like to be dead, huh?" He thought out loud._

_He heard a familiar voice behind him._

"_Derek, you aren't dead. Not yet…"_

_He whirled around to find Angie standing behind him. Well, it looked mostly like Angie._

_Her skin was abnormally pale, almost see-through, but he could tell that the figure was completely solid. Her hair was shorter than he remembered it, and she seemed to radiate a faint glow. She looked a lot healthier, and Derek sniffed the air inconspicuously. It smelled like her, too._

_Her eyes looked exactly the same, but something was off about them._

_He had a million questions, but he chose to start with the basics.\_

"_Where am I? And what happened?"_

_She pointed down. Derek could see right through the "floor", as if it was a glass partition. There seemed to be what looked like a giant TV screen right above him._

_He saw his shattered body, and winced at the sight. Looking at his "dream self", he realized that his skin was flawless. He didn't have a scratch on him. He frowned, which the "dream Angie" noticed._

"_I know, it's rather disorienting, isn't it? This is the place people go to when they are on the brink of life and death."_

_Derek's mind cleared the haze away, and he instantly caught the change in "Angie's" eyes._

_They glowed with a faint luminosity, so faint that most people would have never caught it. But Derek knew Angie pretty well, and as such noticed the change._

"_I didn't know her well enough, it seems." Derek thought to himself bitterly._

"_You sound like you've been here before, it seems." He called to "Dream Angie."_

"_As a matter of fact, I have." She smirked. "I'm your guide. I'm your balance. I am a major role in deciding your life or death. The other person who controls it is, of course, yourself."_

"_And what if we don't want to live?" Derek muttered to himself._

"_Then, you pull that scary red lever over there." She pointed to the scary red lever sitting on the wall next to her._

_For a moment, Derek actually considered it. But he shook it off pretty fast._

"_If I don't touch that lever, what do you think the odds of my survival are?" He asked._

"_Well, I've lived in your head for your entire life, measuring your strength and willpower. And I admit, I'm rather impressed. But this is a crisis of extreme magnitude. I give you hm...a 1 in 1000 chance of survival. Anyone else wouldn't stand a chance. But you...might just make it through this."_

_Derek grit his teeth._

"_I've been through much worse odds. So I'll probably be in here a while. What's your name?"_

_She smiled. "I'm TEL. Don't ask, it's a three letter code."_

_Derek smirked as something ran through his head. "So you have someone called -"_

_TEL smirked. "Yep, and we also have a girl with the code letters A, S and S. But we are nice people, and she lives a rather happy life."_

_For the first time in a while, Derek laughed. "Alright then, TEL. I'm ready to start Survival 102."_

_TEL looked deadly serious. "Then we start right now."_

_The whole world blacked out._

~~~Author Notes~~~

I was shooting for 2 thousand words, but I felt it better to cut it here.

Next chapter, we have more Derek and TEL, which will be explained, and we are gonna learn why Tyler and Leslie aren't at work like they should be. Hm.


	3. Faith

~~~Author Notes~~~

We start with Derek in his little dream world, and continue on to Tyler and Leslie. From there...well, I guess we find out.

Derek's dream world is in _itallics._

_TEL sounded right, I honestly couldn't think of another combo, and I had to make it three letters. My mind was screaming at me to do it._

* * *

_Derek woke up with a start._

_He immediately noticed that the haze was back over his mind again, and he struggled to clear it._

"_Don't start, Derek, you have a lot more to do."_

_He turned around, recognizing the voice. TEL._

_She pointed at a operating table, currently occupied by a patient._

_He felt the weight of the scrubs that suddenly materialized on him, and felt the cold presence of a scalpel in his hand._

_Needing no further instruction, he walked over to the patient, gasping in shock and recognition._

_It was himself._

* * *

Driving home from their date, somewhat tipsy but coherent, Tyler and Leslie were driving home, laughing at some half-funny joke that Tyler had made.

Tyler, driving, had been the first one to note the body lying on the side of the road.

"_The person's probably dead already." _He mused to himself.

They would have driven right by the body if not for two things. One, Leslie recognized the body, and two, the "corpse" moved.

"Tyler! Stop! It's Derek!" Leslie screamed.

Adrenaline pumping throughout both their bodies and clearing their minds of the alcohol, leaving them painfully aware of the situation.

Tyler ran to the trunk to grab an emergency field kit while Leslie ran to check the vitals of their friend.

"He's alive…but he doesn't have a heartbeat!"

Tyler ran with the kit in hand.

"Jesus Christ…"

Without needing to be told, he cracked open the kit and took out a syringe. Filling it with a needleful of stabilizer, he injected Derek with the green substance. Leslie snapped on a pair of latex gloves and affixed a surgical mask onto her face. With Tyler juggling stabilizer injections and getting fit for an emergency operation, she took out a pair of forceps and began to remove shards of glass from Derek's chest.

With the shards out of the way, she turned to Tyler, her face pale.

"What do we do? We can't do CPR, we might push his broken ribs into his organs!"

Tyler cursed.

"We need to massage his heart." He said matter-of-factly, taking out a scalpel.

"Here?!" Leslie screeched. "It's ridiculously unsanitary here!"

Tyler spread antibiotic gel over Derek's chest. "We have no other choice."

And with that, Tyler cut into his best friend's chest. hoping it was the right thing to do.

Blood gushed out, and Leslie went to work with the drain, removing the blood. Tyler reached his hand into Derek's chest, squeezing his heart in an attempt to restart it.

Leslie made a set of sutures over the first lacerations. She attached a portable vitals monitor, revealing the vitals to be at a low 23 and dropping. There was no heartbeat except for Tyler's artificial pumping. She inserted a chest tube, and blood spilled onto the dirt besides them.

She pumped in two sets of stabilizer while Tyler continued to massage his heart, and acting on a whim, spread gel into Derek's chest. The gel had the welcome effect of raising vitals, clearing some of the blood, and revealing the 2-inch gash over Derek's lung. She pinched the wound shut, and was about to suture it when everything went to hell.

Seven lacerations formed on Derek's lung, and blood burst out of them, dropping the vitals to 12. Leslie rushed to inject more stabilizer, and Tyler continued to massage Derek's heart.

Leslie somehow managed to insert a ambu bag, and Tyler compressed the bag. Air rushed into Derek's lungs. Leslie took over the heart massage and compressions, and Tyler went to work, stitching the lacerations shut, and taking out fragments of bone and glass.

The pairing were about to lose their patient, however. One doctor wouldn't be able to treat everything on his own. Fortunately for them, another doctor was on the scene.

* * *

_Getting over the shock, Derek noticed that the vitals of the patient (He refused to think "himself") were wildly fluctuating up and down. He decided to raise the vitals, and had turned to pick up a syringe, when TEL suddenly appeared, syringe in hand, and already filled with stabilizer. She handed it to him._

_Derek couldn't help but think that this was deja vu in some weird, twisted way._

"_Oh, TEL, could you change out of that body?" He spoke as he injected the stabilizer._

"_You mean change my appearance?" TEL frowned. "Was there something wrong with the memory of the host that she was using? I should look like Angie." She thought to herself._

_Naturally she could change her appearance, but she chose not to._

"_Sorry, Derek, I can't."_

_Derek muttered something to himself. "Oh, okay."_

_Derek noticed that the patient was already opened up, and that there was a hand-shaped shadow over the heart, and another shadow over the left lung. A similar shadow was over the mouth. Derek gasped when he realized that there were actually two shadows hovering over his left lung, and that the handprints over his heart and mouth were squeezing._

"_Son of a - Is this a mutated form of Aletheia?" He spoke rapidly to TEL._

"_No, it's your best friends Tyler and Leslie, trying to save your life." TEL said._

"_W-Wait you're serious?!" Derek gasped, startled._

"_Yep. Hurry up, your patient is dying!"_

_Derek cursed, and injected some more stabilizer._

"_What do I do about those shadows then?" Derek asked._

"_Simple, don't touch them, or vitals are going to drop." She replied._

"_Why…?" Derek wondered, as he injected more stabilizer._

"_Derek," TEL explained patronizingly, "If someone hit your hand as you were massaging a patient's heart, do you think that would interrupt your surgery just a little bit?"_

_Derek ignored her tone, and instead concentrating on not hitting dark grey silhouettes while he attempted to suture random gashes on his - the patient's lung._

_Realizing that he wasn't able to do much with the hands in the way, Derek had just about decided to fix the patient's pelvis instead when vitals crashed._

"_Damn...I have a lot of work to do."_

* * *

Tyler was almost done treating Derek's chest when his vitals crashed, lower than they already were.

The good news? Derek's heart restarted.

The bad news: Derek's pericardium split, revealing the blood inside. His heart beat erratically once, fluttered, and then stopped, effectively negating the good news.

Vitals plummeted down from 44 to 7.

"Shit, Cardiac Tamponade!" Tyler cried.

"_But...something's wrong."_

"Son of a - Don't you dare die on me, Derek!"

Tyler visualized a star, and everything slowed down.

"_This is…!"_

Tyler didn't have any control of his hands, but he knew what was going to happen.

Picking up a drain, he removed the blood, and sutured up the pericardium, which somehow restarted his heart. He had quite a bit of time left, so he finished treating Derek's chest and sutured him up.

The color returned to his vision, and Leslie gaped at him.

"T-Tyler?! W-What in the world…?"

He had already passed out on the floor.

* * *

_Derek was gasping from the exertion of using the Healing Touch. It had seemed more taxing than usual._

_TEL smiled. "Very well done, Derek."_

_He glanced at her. "Will the patient be alright?"_

_TEL flicked her wrist, and the OR melted away, revealing the strange black room with the glass floor._

"_Yes, he will be." She said. "And congratulations, you have passed your first challenge."_

_The darkness melted away, revealing that he was in a rather dull room._

_The walls were painted snow white, as was the ceiling. Examining the roof closely, he saw that there wasn't a single crack or chip in it._

_The floor suddenly shifted, and turned solid white._

_Several machines appeared next to the red lever._

_Derek walked over to them._

_A high-tech automated GCS monitor, hovering at about 6. An EKG. Vitals monitor, showing his vitals steady at about 40._

_Derek coughed suddenly, and blood sprayed out. He collapsed, unconscious to the world._

_TEL took a sleek black phone out of her pocket and frowned. "Already? Shouldn't he have time to rest?"_

_She winced as inappropriate words filtered in through her eardrum._

"_Alright, fine, fine. Okay. I'll be right there. Bye."_

_TEL dissipated, leaving Derek alone in the dark._

* * *

Angie perked up as she heard ambulance alarms coming closer. Many of them.

She ran down to the ambulance dock, ready to take in information.

"32 year old John Doe, vitals critical, multiple lacerations to chest and internal bleeding." A paramedic continued to do chest compressions as the man was wheeled by on a gurney.

Angie stared down in shock at the ravaged body.

"What the hell happened to him?"

"Head on crash. The other guy won."

Angie shook her head, and followed after her patient, taking his chart from an intern who stood bewildered.

"C'mon kid, move it!"

The other occupants of the crash were nowhere to be found, all three of them dying…

~~~Author's Notes~~~

Guess who those three are.

And to answer the first review I got, they aren't exactly drunk, just...slightly intoxicated. Not enough to interfere with judgement and coordination.


End file.
